Sunday, May 18, 2014

The Schwartz's vs Love at First Sight with Charlie

This is going to be picture overload here. But I loved how so many of these picture turned out I'm just going to go ahead and publish a ton of them. The two main things I wanted from having birth photography done was to see the expressions on Chris's face during the whole labor process and to see the kids reactions when they first met Charlie. I was especially interested because they didn't know at all during the whole pregnancy that they'd soon be bringing home a baby to their house.

I already posted some birth pictures from the labor. These for the most part are from the first moments of us being a family of 5.

Charles Franklin Schwartz

(And yes we got a total kick out of the two doctors together being a Hogg Butcher. Ha!)

The kids rode with us to the hospital and on the way there I kept trying to tell them we were going to the hospital to get a baby, and soon it's going to be Mommy, Daddy, Sarah, Cody, and a baby. When we got there Grandma Schwartz met us out front and took the kids for breakfast while we had Charlie. Then after I was all cleaned up and it was safe to let others into the room Chris called his mom and asked her to come back with the kids so they could meet their new brother.

This is the first moment they both saw Charlie.

And they loved him from this moment on.

Charlie's first kiss from Sarah.

Charlie's first kiss from Cody.

We asked both the kids if they wanted to hold Charlie but didn't force the issue for either of them. Sarah was thrilled. She absolutely wanted to hold him.

Cody didn't want to hold Charlie at the hospital, but since these are pictures of people holding Charlie for the first time I thought I'd slip in this cell phone picture I took of the first time Cody asked to hold Charlie.

April 8, 2014

Again, this is Amy Coontz our doula holding her newest client.

She was absolutely fantastic. When people ask what a doula does or what Amy did for me during the birth it's hard to describe. But to put it into one word: comfort. It was very comforting to know that I had someone with me who has done this 5 times herself, and been there for countless other women. It was comforting to know that if there was a problem I had someone else to advocate for me and work with the hospital staff to make sure I was getting the attention that I needed. I joke about how I was being melodramatic on purpose in the beginning yelling, "I don't want to be alone" so I could get Chris back in triage. And I was. But as much as staff has to come in and out of the room as they are attending to so many other women in labor, it's comforting to have Amy there because she doesn't have to go anywhere else. She's with you the whole time. And I guess, I really don't like to be alone during labor. So if I ever do this again, you better believe it'll be with Amy by my side. (Plus Chris loves that she takes all the pressure off him to know what's going on and what to do for me, he just get to enjoy the birth.)

Grandma Schwartz holding Charlie for the first time.

I really owe all these wonderful pictures to her and Meggan Boston. If Vickie hadn't been so kind to take care of our kids during the labor and then bring them back we won't have any of these awesome pictures that I cherish.

I like this one. As much as Cody was more interested in his new super heros Charlie brought for him, you can tell he's a little curios about this new thing cause he's touching Charlie's head.

But mostly he just liked his new super heros.

Our new Schwartz Family

Look at those fat rolls! I've never had a baby with fat rolls!

This one probably should have been with the labor pictures cause clearly it's during the clean up time. I love the look on my face that basically says to me, "welp, that's all folks!"